


TURN LEFT

by AxZi



Category: Heart no Kuni no Alice | Alice in the Country of Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Female Character, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Mystery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV First Person, Protagonist has a crush on Alice
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-16 01:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8082058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AxZi/pseuds/AxZi
Summary: ROUND THE ROUNDABOUT, TURN LEFT. A girl with some skeletons in her closet, needs distraction. Wonderland, being Wonderland, obliges. The adventures of Alice in Wonderland. And Abigail. Yeah, hi. She's here too-and she thinks Alice is such a dear heart. It's a shame the girl herself thinks otherwise. Or, the adventures of a girl who despite her best effort finds herself being compared to Peter. Or, the adventures of the girl who just wants to be pet because boohoo she's just so lonely pet her!





	

**Author's Note:**

> Characters starring in this chapter: Ace, Alice and Abigail. Triple A!

Black walls, smooth structures. Alien geometry. I walked down a triangle path.

A sharp tang in the air.  Metallic--but with hints of pepper.

I was running now. Tipsy tospy curvy: upside down. My foot kicked off the smooth rock with a _smack_.

I clambered up the bump at the right side of the road, balancing to the side of a great fall. My hands at either side of me as if I was presenting something.

I wasn’t.

I looked beside me, at the abyss which for quite some time, was an old friend.

Continue down this path? Or jump away. This was only a dream after all, I’d be alright.

But I hesitated, blinking blue eyes at the black. My foot scuffed against the rock, before I planted it on the edge and leaned my head over.  Even a gust of wind could blow me over now. So what would it be?

Perhaps I should balance here all this time, let gravity decide.

 _Ah._ But I forget, chuckling, that in dreams like these, there was no such thing as gravity. But...I think to fall would be best, because in the shadows slinking behind me, I knew empathically there was something else.

Something which wanted me. Wanted the chase.

Wanted to _hurt_.

Even in dreams, I’d do just about anything not to die. Or was that, even in reality? Because making bad decisions, in dreams, were par for de course.

I debated this a moment more as I swayed on the very edge of the bump. Then I scoffed at the turn my thoughts had taken. “What does it matter?” I mocked myself out loud, before spreading my feet apart.

What did it? The fall or the chase. The run or the descent.                          

“There is no choice after all,” I said, and kicked off the bump.

I cut through air like a lump object, and as unresponsive as such. I wasn’t a bird, able to fight against gravity. I wasn’t a kite, able to flow along.

If I met ground now, it’d _hurt._

The thought, absurdly, brought another round of giggles with it. Hurt if I remained on that platform, just the same, as if I jumped off. Which I had.

“What a fool,” I mocked, drawing my arms back to myself.

Although, this was a dream. I couldn’t get as into mocking myself as usual, because outside of reality, dreams held no consequences.

I was free to be as dumb as I wished.

“Aha...haha...”

If only I wasn’t soon going to die in my dream, I might have been happier about this. Typically, I wasn’t as present in my dreams as this night so I barely got the opportunity. Yet I had squandered it by being so eager to jump off.

“Aha, hahah, hahaha!”

 _So funny._ I sabotaged myself even in dreams. _Hopeless, useless—disgusting._

Disgusting.

....

I free fell some more.

I lost track of time, falling falling and falling down.

The wind rushed past me, ruffling my skirt. Why was I wearing these clothes, when they weren’t my usual outside? No clue.

My descent went on for longer, random thoughts swirling inside the emptiness of my head. Popping in for tea, to leave just as soon.

....

Eventually, I didn’t think at all.

....

....

....

. . . .

I snapped awake, almost hitting myself with a tree branch as I shot up.

“Huh?”

I looked around myself, at the forest I had somehow been napping in. Despite the fact that I’ve moved five years ago to a city _without_ a forest.

There were trees towering above me, the canopies swaying with the brisk wind going on. The bark felt rough on my back, and there was a crick in my neck, so whoever had transported me must have done so without care. Either that or she or he had left me here for a while, so the awkward position they’d lain me in had caught up to me.

I almost whined at the thought. Dammit, being stiff should only happen if it was under my direction I went badly to sleep at night! _If it’s not my fault, there should be no consequences!_

But, with certainty, my back pain and the sharp pain in my shoulder radiating down to my neck was definitely there. I heaved a sigh as I dragged myself to my feet, sandals shuffling through the with leave covered floor.

I scratched the dip in my elbow. “Now what?”

I had no idea where I was. How I had gotten here. Whether those who had put me here were still around.

I wasn’t certain about anything, so, _as I had said before_ , now what?

I squinted at the sun, cheerfully beaming at me from the sky. Dredging up old memories, I tried to remember what its position in the sky meant right now. Was it nearing night? Considering the bright red glare behind my fluttering eyelashes, it didn’t seem so.

But once again, I couldn’t be certain about anything, including that.

For all I knew, my kidnappers had transported me to one of the sunnier nations, where the sun was full tilt for just about the entire day and night.

“Sucks,” I grumbled to myself. I also become cautious of the fact I needed food and drink to surface. If I didn’t find civilisation soon, I was going to be in danger of my health. “Fantastic.”

_Guess that means I’ll have to get a move on._

Without further preamble, I started investigating the forest.

Only, three hours later, to finally collapse into the knee high grass field I’d found. “Gah,” I moaned, “My feet are absolutely dead. Where’s a bicycle when you need one?”

I paused to give karma the moment to catch-up. But alas, a bicycle didn’t conveniently appear. “Grr.” I could only growl at the injustice of that fact.

It wasn’t like I wasn’t fit either. There was no stab in my chest signifying my lack of fitness. Anyone in my position would have been able to walk more, because walking didn’t take much out of you.

It’s just that I had a defining flaw in my life, unfortunately. It was part of the reason why I thought karma had it out for me, though karma with certainly didn’t exist. Probably. Maybe. _I’m not actually very certain, actually._

I sat up in the field, folding my legs underneath me as I started plucking at the grass blades.

The defining flaw was the state of my feet. They bent inwards, and basically messed up my entire body structure from there upwards. Which also didn’t help me back when I’d still try and act in plays, before realizing I was stiff and stupid in front of a crowd. So not my thing.

It meant I couldn’t walk for longer than an hour before they complained, radiating pain from my hips or back downwards depending on how much fate hated me at the time. It also meant I wasn’t that sporty a woman, outside of bike sports.

_Which is why not having a bike, sucks._

I nodded to myself at those words. For real.  And started shredding grass blades with even more violence. But even that couldn’t stop the prickles of fear from magnifying inside me, with each minutes’ passage.

“Sucks, sucks, sucks, sucks,” I muttered softly to myself, eyeing the field around me.

Come to think of it, I was quite in the open here, wasn’t I?

No longer did the field give of a friendly impression which had led me to collapse. Now it felt like a mine-field. Like I could take a step in any direction and a bomb could go off.

“Though not literally,” I explained to karma, hoping it wouldn’t take the comment and run with it.

_It tends to do that, unfortunately._

The grimmer atmosphere was enough encouragement for me to ignore the sharp pain in my bones.

I started crawling through the grass, the natural camouflage, towards where I knew the thicker foliage would shelter me. With each starburst of pain, I mouthed encouragements to myself while trying to block out the not-so-encouraging mocking going on in my head as usual.

I came out at one of the thicker stemmed plants, which I quickly mixed myself in so nobody would be able to see. It assuaged my paranoia assuredly, except—

The loose dirt on the forest bed started _shifting._

A distant voice rang out, clear as a bell, “BEAAAAAR!”

 _B-bear?!_ My heart skipped a beat, before stuttering painfully like a shy underclassman’s first time acting on screen....

Though it had nothing to do with the situation I was on, I almost couldn’t help think – _or their first time in bed._

I resisted the urge to face-palm myself. _Not cool, Abigail. Not cool at all._

Of course, that caused another avalanche of mock to sling through my mind, but I ignored it through long experience, instead peeking out from the leaf the size of my head to see whether the bear was anywhere near me.

I ended up seeing the owner of the voice instead—or rather, two of them?

“RUN, RUN, RUUUUN!” One of them shouted, I thought at first at me, but the way they pulled harshly on the other’ elbow showed it was them she was talking to.

The other, a tall boy wearing a red waist coat, let out a burst of merry laughter, and an assurance, “Yep, we’re definitely running! That’s for sure!”

The girl looked as ill as I’d have in the same situation.

But that wasn’t important! If the bear was chasing them, and the bear had better senses than humans, it could notice me! And then I’d be eaten, and worst of all, it’d be _my fault._

With the breath in my lungs, and for as long as my heart beat, I could never allow that to happen. _Self-sabotage is the worst._

_It can’t be helped. I’m going to have to show myself._

Breathing in a deep breath to keep myself composed, I did just that.

The two didn’t exactly stop – why would they though? Bear! – at my sudden presence, but I was surprised when the girl looped her arm between mine without a word and I was dragged into running alongside the two.

“Huh,” the boy said, leisurely, “Who’re you?”

He made us jump over one of the low hanging branches from a lopsidedly grown tree.

“Not the time,” the girl advised. From so close, I could count the eyelashes of her eyes.

Eyes which remained me of Malibu blue.

The drink, not the lagoon _—_ I’d never actually been to a lagoon before, let alone the one in Malibu.

I marvelled at them as I heard crashed behind us, meaty thumps of a tree getting entangled between the claws of a bear.

_Pretty._

They glowed almost fairy-tale like.

“Wh, what is it?” she stumbled over her words. Fortunately not actually tripping so she could drag us into the bear’s maul with her. “Do-do I have something on my face?” Her hands palmed said face, and what a magnificent face it was, too. Heart shaped, with well defined cheekbones.

Inwardly I pouted. _Unlike mine, which are non-existent._

And those eyes. Mine were blue too, but darkly so, not steely. Not like hers.

“I’m Abigail,” I introduced myself as we raced round a corner of triangle-leaf plants. The bear roared its outrage yet again at our outrageous escape.

I kept my eye on those pretty blues. They fascinated me.

The girl pursed her lips with a dip of her shoulders, like I’d puzzled her in some way, but she was too used to it to get worked up about it. “Alice.”

“Ace!” The boy cut in, flashing a bedazzling smile.

He looked nice as well. Boyish, with short cut spiky hair and an angular face. The cute to Alice’s pretty. And his smile gave you nice vibes.

His smile **sparkled.**

I saluted him. “Nice to meet you, Ace!”

He jumped, bringing us with him, to avoid the bear’s claws going for his cape. We landed on a tree stump, before the boy wound his arm around vines dropping down from the canopy.

We went up, Alice having to shift her knees past him so she could cling to him and me hoisting myself onto his shoulders.

Despite his boyish build, he didn’t collapse underneath our combined weight. If I could, I might have clapped.

“Wow, impressive!”

He flashed me another smile, and drawled, “I’m here all week.”

Just for that, I wanted to give him a wolf whistle, but Alice had to intervene.

“You two, shhh!”

Still looking a bit queasy, the girl brought a finger to her lips. I followed the finger as it met its destination. _Ah, if only I could be that finger._

 _...Okay, stop it Abigail. Just stop._ None the sooner did the thought pass, I averted my gaze to watch the bear instead. My dignity having stepped back in.

The bear, meanwhile, was a solid specimen of its race. A scar crisscrossing his ear. Powerfully, muscly built. Covered in fur.

I could imagine what it’d feel like being belly flopped by it, or having its claws rake my neck, and winced. Looking at Alice and how trebly she was, I felt even more sorry.

But now was not the time to say my sorry, where the bear might hear, so I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

“Guys,” I said, finally, “I don’t think waiting here is such a good idea. I think it’ll outlast us, if I’m being honest.” The forest was its habitat after all, not ours.

The boy dipped his head. He had a long neck, like a bird’s. “Right right. Break time _is_ over, I’d say.”

I turned a confused look at him. “Break time?”

The girl next to me let out a deflated sigh. “Knowing Ace, to him this _does_ count as a break,” she muttered resentfully. I saw her nails had dug into the wood of the tree branch, white with tension.

I didn’t know what to say to that. “Though how are we going to get out of here then?”

I didn’t think it’d be easy, because we were on a tree, but it’s not like it was an especially grounded one. With all three of us on it, it had already been creaking in protest, so moving might just be the ice pick to deflate the tires of the car.

I went ahead and told them this.

Ace let out a laugh. His teeth were remarkably white. When he’d calmed down, he said, “What a beautiful analogy.” Then continued, “I do hope the tires were from those pricks—“

“Ace!”

“—from the Hearts mansion, though. Or even Peter, if you really must.”

He grinned down with ease over the top of Alice, who tilted her chin so she could narrow her eyes right back at him.

I cocked my head to the side. “What’s wrong with that? Was it the language?” I interrogated off the pretty blonde. Or... “Did I...offend you, somehow? Oh my god,” I broke off, “I’m sorry if I have! Really, really sorry, that wasn’t my intention at all—“

Alice’s hand was in my hair. Fine, long pianist fingers which stroked over the top, smoothing down the frizz. _To calm me down?_

I settled down accordingly. _She’d let go of the tree trunk to reassure me._

Alice was a good girl. For real.

“I have a plan,” Ace interrupted, before I could get truly and utterly spellbound. I stopped myself from hissing at him, because hissing isn’t polite. But only barely.

“Are you going to kill the bear?” Alice made the suggestion.

Ace tsked at Alice’s words, the sound almost accusative. “No way! How could I possibly hurt a snuggly wuggly woodland creature! He’s just listening to his instincts.” He wagged his finger, the other keeping him balanced on the branch. “Bad Alice.”

The look Alice sent him in return spoke a thousand words. She wasn’t going to play along.

“How can you say that?” I blurted out, over the churning of the bear’s nails scraping the foot of the tree. Alice’s eyes became huge and glistening, snapping open to their fullest extent.

I....didn’t see why she was that surprised?

“The snuggly wuggly woodland creature wants to tear our throats out,” I explained. Her face smoothed out so it looked blank for a second. Confusing.

“See Alice,” Ace laughed, the glint in his eyes dancing, “She agrees!”

I had just said I didn’t understand why he could name the creature harmless. “Weirdo,” I muttered underneath my breath.

“So he is,” Alice nodded, knocking our shoulders together.

The redhead pouted.

“Anyway,” the girl said, leaning more of her weight on me. I was happy to accept it from her. “There’s something that was bothering me. Are you...?” The girl made a rubbing gesture with her fingers.

“Am I?” I asked back, not sure.

“An outsider,” Ace finished for her, over the screech of the bear’s claws raking the foot of the tree.

“I’m not sure.” Because I wasn’t. “Depends on what you consider outsider, but I’m not very sure why I’m here?”

“Like, I woke up here.” I shrugged my shoulders, smiling helplessly at the two. “So I don’t really know where ‘this’ is.”

“Eh, so you—you weren’t lead here by anyone?” The girl asked. I idly pondered what that complicated expression on her face meant, her eyes almost glacial were they bore in mine, demanding answers.

The boy tilted forwards, brushing his cheek against the girl’s and she went a bit pink. If she hadn’t had a death grip on the trunk carrying our weight, I was sure she’d have pushed him back. Now she could do nothing but accept it.

He said, “Oh?” Nothing more than a noise of interest. But his eyes seemed lit up from the inside, almost like their own light source. Like a cat’s. Like a predator’s.

His eyes rested on _me._ I couldn’t be the one who brought him those instincts, could I?

Finally I couldn’t bear it any longer. “Are you two a couple, yes or no?” 

“C-couple? With Ace?” Alice spluttered.

“With Alice?” Ace laughed. I guess that meant they weren’t.

“Okay then, because, you’re very cute,” I told the pretty blonde up front. Because she really was, especially in that apron-dress. “And though this might be creepy from someone who had been kidnapped, and that being the only reason I’m here, but I would like to ask you out.”

Said girl didn’t go slack-jawed exactly, but her grip did slacken so I hurried to press myself closer to her area of the trunk and grabbed her into a half hug.

It meant my hand brushed against Ace’s as well, since he’d done the same thing at the same time.

I couldn’t call the sharp, pointy thing of his smile friendly. There were too many serrated edges there for that. And oh my, but the red shade of his eyes did approximate blood. Huh, the things you notice.

“Well?” I prodded, my own lips spreading into a smile. She was so adorable, flushing like that. She looked so kissable, eyes fluttering rapidly from the shock. A dazed expression I wanted to put on her more.

So cute. I just melted on the inside.

The girl I had my eyes on licked her lips. I followed the movement of that little tongue, swiping over a plumb lip. I might be okay with her hesitating even more so long as she gave me so many expressions. What a treat!

 _Abigail, calm yourself,_ my mind reasserted. Ah, I was wondering when it’d show up—it had been taking its sweet time.

When my beau finally did try and speak, I shushed her with a finger to her lips.

My, but Ace was suddenly without a smile. Weird.

“You don’t have to tell me right now. Just....think about it? And then give me your response?” I made it a plea, gently rubbing the small of her back. She twitched a little, looking at me as if she’d seen a ghost.

With awe, I hoped.

She mumbled something, but only caught the tail-end of it. “—Peter.”

Her redheaded friend practically imploded in an explosion of glitter, the smile stuck back to his face like it had never dropped.

 _Who the fuck was Peter_. Unlike myself, I felt a stab of...of jealousy at the thought of whoever she’d just mentioned, instead of me.

But I just smiled sort of twitchily and said nothing.

Ace sprung out of the tree.

“W, what,” I couldn’t do nothing but splutter as he coaxed the bear to trump behind him, running away from Alice and I.

Also, how hadn’t I seen the broadsword he carried? HOW could he have possibly hidden it on the tree trunk? _I am so confused!_

I turned wildly at Alice, to only be met with her back as she tested a leg against a spot beneath the branch.  “Right, we should be going.”

I lowered myself and let myself drop for the last few metres, ignoring the jarring in my legs. Pre-empting me, the girl strode on with determination. _I’m just going to assume she knows the way._ Humming a tune underneath my breath and swinging my hands at my side. Ah the wind was good, I followed closely behind.

Hopefully, we were going to go to civilisation. Or if not that, then a place with answers.

“Sorry about that,” the pretty blonde said, after we’d put sufficient distance between us and the bear. I gazed at her sheepish smile, before shaking my head.

“It’s no problem.”

A wry smile pulled at her cheeks at that. “We got you chased by a bear.”

There was that. “Okay, maybe so. But you got me out of it too.”

The girl smoothed the white apron down, nails pulling at the material. “You mean, Ace did.”

I frowned at her insecurity, actually a bit annoyed. “I meant what I said – you pulled me along first, didn’t you? And if you hadn’t called there was a bear, I’d have been sitting there and might have not been able to escape in time.”

She blinked, taken by surprise by my words. “Yeah. You’re right.”

I nodded importantly. “I generally am.”

Afterwards I fell on my back into the earth, staring at the sky. “Wait a minute—“

“It’s night,” Alice mused as she lowered herself to sit beside me.

“I know! And it was sunny and distinctly afternoon not a second ago—“

“And that’s typical for Wonderland,” she assured. She then noticed the stubborn look I had on my face, so she elaborated. “Look, Wonderland isn’t like real life. Here, times goes strange most of the time. It’s daylight and then night time at the blink of an eye, because there’s no progression.”

“No progression?” I echoed.

“Nope. It’s like time stands still. It’s pretty weird, but eventually you’ll get used to it.”

From the scrunch to her nose, I doubted she believed her own words. Nevertheless, I nodded to act as if I agreed.

In all truth, the sudden change was freaking me out. Theories sprung out of nowhere and assaulted me-what if I’d ended up in a government facility? What if I was locked up and hallucinating all this? What if this, like Alice had hinted, wasn’t reality at all? What if I was dying?

It worried me which the blonde noticed as she reached out to give my head a pat. I closed my eyes underneath her ministrations.

At least Alice was here.


End file.
